


your heart is the only place that I call home

by vowelinthug



Category: Black Sails
Genre: F/M, Flint Pulls Out the Baby Photos, Food That Actually Doesn't Get Eaten, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-30 06:33:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10156295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vowelinthug/pseuds/vowelinthug
Summary: sequel tostill i follow the heartlines on your handMadi learns the secret of John Silver's past: he used to be theworst.





	

**Author's Note:**

> for megh, based on [her post](http://ohflint.tumblr.com/post/157752379020/i-really-want-james-telling-madi-about-all-the), which she explicitly called me out on, because she is terrible <3
> 
> also this is my first ever attempt at writing Madi so i hope she sounds right!

Madi, unlike Silver, learned to knock.

Flint is in the middle of telling Silver a story about Hornigold, heard secondhand, involving him and his crew's hats going overboard. His voice is scratchy with exhaustion, but he keeps talking even without Silver's encouragement. Silver rests beside him, nose tucked behind Flint's ear. He can feel the soft hairs on Flint's head against his eyelids. It feel longer, like it's beginning to grow back again.

A short, but gentle rap on the door, and Flint is bolting upright. He's already got the pistol he'd left on the nightstand in his grip, though it rests in his lap, beside _Meditations_. His other hand lies heavy and warm on Silver's thigh. He says nothing, staring at the door. He hadn't reacted that way when Silver had come in, but perhaps he'd been expecting him. Perhaps Flint is afraid how it looks, in bed with him.

Silver sits up on his elbows, his side still pressed along Flint's, and says, "Come in."

The door opens wide. One of Madi's bodyguards had pushed it open. She walks in with a tray of food. She'd put on her own clothes instead of finding new ones, but her freshly clean skin gleaned in the low candlelight. But that is how she's looked to Silver ever since he first saw her. She glows.

Madi wordlessly nods at the bodyguard, and he shuts the door behind her. No doubt, though, that he is still out there.

"Neither of you eat enough," she said, placing the tray of food on the bed. "When I was growing up, one of the first things my mother taught me was that white men ate like pigs."

Silver smiles. "If you're wondering about this indecent position you've caught us in," he says, just to watch Flint swallow nervously, "I promise you, I can explain."

Madi sits delicately at the foot of the bed, her feet next to theirs. She pours herself some tea. "You needn't explain anything," she says. She shoots Silver a look out the corner of her eye. "When you were dead, Captain Flint and I came to an understanding."

"We did?" Flint asks. He looks a little less nervous now, helping himself to some of the fruit Madi brought in. "I heard you didn't like me, before."

Madi makes a face at Silver, who just shrugs. It's the _truth_.

"I didn't _trust_ you, before," Madi clarifies, "and I didn't know you. I trusted you to do everything in your power to keep this alliance together. I trusted you to fight this war until the end, a fight I care as much about the success of as I do about Silver."

"If not more so," Silver adds for her.

Her lips twitch slightly at him before looking back at Flint. "But I didn't trust you with John Silver."

Flint blinks at her, frowning. He rolls a grape between his fingers, forgetting to actually eat it.

This is actually Silver's favorite thing in the world: to already know everything, while everyone else in the room is still figuring it out. He doesn't mean it maliciously (not right now, anyway), but watching the comprehension spill across Flint's face, watching Madi's eyes flicker again and again to where Flint's hand had been left forgotten on Silver's thigh.

She knew about his feelings, though. Obviously, or he wouldn't be here. He wouldn't do that to her. Of course, he hadn't meant to tell her. It had just come out one evening, while they were alone together.

Or rather, it had spilled out - the name - from Silver's lips while Madi had her mouth around his cock, and he thinks she would have been a lot angrier about it if he hadn't been so fucking _mortified_. Plus, as she said, it was not wholly unexpected. But all it had really accomplished, then, was a stronger distrust of every move Flint made.

"I did not know how you felt towards him," Madi says, her bare foot brushing against Flint's. “Not until you stood beside me on the shore, until I heard your intake of breath as we waited for the last injured man to be brought out of the sea. Not until I looked and saw a mirror standing beside me, all of my own feelings reflected right there for me to see. I knew, then, in that awful moment, that you did not see Silver as another tool in your arsenal. As you said,” and now she looks down at Flint’s hand on Silver’s thigh and keeps looking, eyebrow raised, and Flint squeezes Silver unconsciously when he notices, “you saw him to be your friend. I knew why Silver trusted you, but I did not believe in it until that moment. If I hadn’t, I would have returned to my home and forgotten all about this.”

Flint looks away, lost in thought, though there seems to be a slight blush rising on the high of his cheekbones. He eats his grape.

Madi tsks, and when Silver turns back to her, she is setting down her teacup and reaching for him. “Honestly,” she says, reaching for the laces of his boot, “who puts their shoes on the bed like this? Is this how England raises their boys?”

“Yes,” says Silver, trying not to twitch as she pulls it off, watching her face to see it change to another scowl. She is so collected in public, so reserved. He’d been so delighted to discover how expressive she can be in private.  

“My shoes,” Flint points out, “are off.”

Madi hums. She taps Flint’s toes with her bare foot. “There is a reason why you are the only white man my mother has ever agreed with.”

“Over ten years, I’ve had to convince people to see my side by steel and powder,” says Flint, no longer looking lost, “and all this time, I could have just been using _manners_.”

Silver stares at where Madi’s foot rests gently on top of Flint’s. Seeing them like that -- the oft-covered parts of themselves, looking so elegant, so vulnerable on the soft linen sheets -- fills Silver with a fierce, almost blinding sense of protectiveness. He doesn’t know what to do with it, but he wants to _shake_ with it. He’s never felt this way for anyone, not even the crew, and he gave up his _leg_ to keep them safe. He thinks now he’d give up the rest of him and more to keep Madi and Flint from harm, and he feels something that isn’t quite horror, isn’t quite joy.

Then he realizes they were both insulting him, and he opens his mouth to retort, when Flint says to Madi, “Do you want to hear about the first time I ever saw him?”

Silver shuts his mouth. Even though he was there, he wants to hear this, too.

Madi picks up her teacup again, smiling near the brim. “I’d love to.”

“He was,” says Flint, “and I’m being as fair as I can possibly be, the absolute worst a person could be.”

“Hey!”

“Shush,” says Madi, slapping his hand lightly. “I want to hear this.”

“Truly terrible,” Flint says, helping himself to more food. “Face like an angel, impulse control like the Devil, and an absolute idiot. Looking back now, it might actually be an act of God he’s survived this long.”

Silver perks up. “Face like an angel?”

Flint ignores him. “We had just learned that a very valuable piece of paper was in the hands of a thief on board my ship. Billy and -- my former Quartermaster, Mr. Gates, sussed out that it was our newly arrived cook, Mr. Silver. To make a long story short, however, we had to be subtle about ascertaining him, so we calmly walked out onto the deck, where most of my crew were milling about, doing their jobs. Dozens of men, dozens of faces, but there in the middle was this shiny-faced, curly-haired moron, staring at me wide-eyed with such _obvious_ guilt, as well as obvious terror. “

“I -- had some stubble,” Silver protests, sitting further up on his hands.

“Not like this.” Flint scratches lightly at Silver’s chin, before tugging softly on his beard. “This could kill a man by itself.”

“You have a terrible fondness, I’ve noticed,” Silver says, leaning into it, “for fiddling with beards.”

Madi laughs at the way Flint pulls his hand back, some of that flush rising back onto his cheeks. “So,” she says, “I assume you were swiftly captured and punished.”

“Hardly,” says Silver. He leans back down on his elbows. His arms are starting to strain but he likes being able to see them both. “I was a master of evasion. I easily gave them the slip.”

“If you were on the _Walrus_ , how did you escape?” Madi asks, raising both eyebrows.

Flint snorts. “By flinging himself over the top and landing bodily into the sea.” He chuckles slightly. “The resounding smack could likely be heard from shore, as did your cry afterwards.”

“I didn’t _cry_ ,” says Silver, placing a hand on his belly. It had been red for _hours_ after that jump. “I _yelled_.”

Flint laughs, his eyes light and on Silver like the sun glinting off the ocean. He’s so mesmerized by that light that he doesn’t realize Madi isn’t laughing, that she’s too busy looking at him with a pensive look on her face. “What is it?” he asks her.

“It’s -- nothing.” She glances down at his leg briefly, before meeting his eyes. “You say you jumped?”

“Yeah?”

“I just don’t think I realized,” she says, still talking to Silver, but her eyes flicker to Flint, “that you must have known him before you lost your leg.”

“Oh,” says Silver. “Right.”

“It’s my mistake,” Madi says quickly, hand around his ankle. “I knew the wound was fairly recent when you first landed on our island. It only makes sense, for your relationship to be longer than your wound. I just never considered it before.”

Now Flint is looking at him, light in his eyes extinguished. “You haven’t -- told her what happened? Why -- “

“It’s never come up,” says Silver, which is true. “It’s a hard moment to identify, but I know the moment is not now. This is a calm night, perhaps the last we’ll have for awhile, and I’d rather not spoil it.” He sits up, strips off his shirt in one movement, and lays down fully on the bed. “Let us stay calm.”

“Are you just showing skin in the hopes of changing the subject?” Madi asks.

“Yes,” says Silver, lifting up his arms and pillowing his head in his hands.

Flint says nothing. He’s too busy staring to say anything.

“Is it working?” Silver asks him.

Flint looks back at his face with a few dozen blinks, before he frowns. “Madi,” he says, glaring at Silver, “would you like to hear the story about how Silver poisoned the whole crew with the cunning use of a pig and several bees?”

“Oh, no,” says Silver, closing his eyes. “Not the bees.”

Madi is laughing again. “I’m not sure I truly believe these stories,” she says. “I can’t imagine you this way.”

“It’s probably all for the best,” says Flint. “You wouldn’t have looked twice at him back then.”

“Hey!” Silver opens his eyes again to scowl at Flint. “I’ll have you know that beautiful and powerful women looked at me all the time.”

“Berating you, spurning you, or having you arrested does not count as _looking at you._ ”

“Well, that’s hardly fair,” Silver says. “One can hardly be insulted without first being _acknowledged._ ”

“Surely, there must be something familiar between this man and the one you first met,” Madi says. Her hands have slipped to Silver’s foot, thumbs pressing down on the arch. “You _are_ the same person, after all.”

Silver shivers at her hands, easing away his aches. He’d thought, a long time ago, it feels, that using a crutch instead of the iron leg would be _less_ painful, and sure his stump hurts less, but his whole body feels sore and abused. Of course, that could also be all the abuse. But he’s spent these last months cursing every muscle and bone in his body, and in this moment he feels boneless. He can feel the softness of the bed beneath him, he can feel the warmth of the bodies beside him, and he cannot feel the life he leads, not right now.

“He saved my life once,” Flint says quietly. He’s looking at his hands, at the gun still sitting in his lap. “When we were hunting the _Urca,_ we ran into some trouble. Quite a lot of trouble, actually. But from this, there was no escaping. The ship was being shelled, we were all going overboard, wood and blood and body parts flying everywhere. It was nothing but chaos and destruction and carnage, and I was in the water. And I was tired. I had made such mistakes, and I was so _tired_ of making mistakes. And so I let it take me. I went under. Until it was just the water and I. No one should have been there for me. There was no reason to expect to ever be dry again.” He meets Silver’s eyes. “Imagine my surprise, waking up on some beach. I found out later, he was the one who dragged me out, who gave me breath again. And I -- I couldn’t --”

“Stop,” Silver says. “It's not the same.”

“You got me when I went under, but I couldn't get you. It certainly _feels_ the same -- “

“Well, it isn't.” He grabs Flint's elbow, feels like he's trying to pull him back to the surface again. “You had to worry about saving everyone. I only cared about saving _you._ It's not the same.”

Flint lets out a shuddering breath, touching Silver’s hand with his own shaky fingers. He nods.

“Doing the selfless thing for selfish reasons,” says Madi. She leans over, easily plucks the gun out of Flint’s lap, and sets it on the food tray. She also picks up the copy of _Meditations,_ glances at the title, and then returns it with a smile. “That sounds more familiar. Did you know, John Silver, that you’ve always been this full of love?”

He stares at her in shock, and from the silent, still presence to his left, he thinks Flint is likely doing the same. She goes about putting the tray on the floor, uncaring of their looks.

Yes, Silver thinks, he has always been about love. But it's been a haunting presence in his life, an absence. A tale he’d heard through a third party, with key details missing, so he didn't quite understand it, but he couldn't get his mind off the parts he did. He’d spent so long fixating on the idea of love, both yearning for it and dismissing it with equal ferocity, the way a doubting man might pray in church for some tangible sign of God. Silver, in his experience, has only ever wanted.

Madi settles down beside Silver, lying on her side with her head propped on her hand to watch them. She cups his cheek, and pulls him closer to a calming kiss, soothing the rapid pulse of his heart.

When she pulls back, she says, “Have you kissed Flint yet?”

He's never known a woman to surprise him as much as she does. He used to know what to expect from people. “Uh,” he says. “No.”

“If this moment is also too hard for you to identify,” she says dryly, “let me help by telling you, _now_ would be a good time.”

He can feel Flint at his side, but he's trapped in Madi's eyes. “Is it?” he asks faintly.

“If the look he is giving us now is any indication,” she answers, looking up at Flint. “I told you I understood why you trust him. I told you I believed now he feels the same way you do. But even so, it would be nice to see the evidence of this with my own eyes.”

Silver also turns to Flint, who is almost looming now over him. From this angle, his eyes are totally shadowed, but his lips, and the gold of his beard, and the glint of teeth, all shine in the candlelight. Silver swallows, mouth suddenly dry.

Flint puts his hand on his cheek, on the opposite side Madi touched. He slides it behind his ear, tangling in his hair as he gently lifts Silver closer, but Silver is already rising to meet him.

The first thing Silver notices is the sweet hint of fruit still lingering on Flint’s tongue, brighter than he was expecting. Flint’s lips are dry, opened just enough for Silver to get that taste. He feels shivery, and _hungry_ , the weariness that had filled him moments ago all but evaporated, wiped away by Flint’s stubble rubbing against his lips, by the low, aching moan echoing out of Flint’s throat. He clutches at the back of Flint’s head, holding him close.

His first kiss with Madi had been so shocking, the realization that someone so strong, so beautiful could ever want him. His first kiss with Flint was equally stunning, the realization that someone he wanted for so long, could ever want him back.

“Ah,” whispers Madi into his ear, hand resting on his chest. “ _T_ _here_ it is.”

Flint pulls back, but keeps Silver’s face inches from his for a moment, just looking. Then he drags his hand away, letting Silver drop back down to the pillow. His hand drags down Silver’s neck, until it rests on top of Madi’s. He turns to lie down again, this time facing him. They are curled around him like wings, and he a worn and beaten bird, finally able to rest after a long and arduous flight through the night.

For a moment, all they do is breathe together, which in itself is a miraculous thing. Then, Flint says, “Madi, would you like to hear how Silver first gained his immense influence over the crew?”

“Stop,” says Silver, trying not to smile. He closes his eyes again. “I’ll have you know, she finds me incredibly impressive, and I won’t have you spoiling it.”

“Be quiet,” says Madi. “I’m trying to listen.”

“We should be resting,” Silver protests. “We have so many battles to fight tomorrow, so many people trying to kill us, and we wouldn’t want to oversleep for that. Did you lock the door when you came in?”

“No,” says Madi. “I have guards outside, not to mention the two most vicious men on this entire island in my bed. Why should I have to lock _any_ door? Flint, please continue.”

Silver isn’t wrong. Tomorrow will be hard, and each day is only going to get harder and harder for them. But he wasn’t wrong earlier, either: this is a calm night. And there is nothing better for a calm night than old stories and two hands over his heart.

So when Flint begins, “Well, it involves Silver enduring more than several beatings, as well as him taking advantage of an addled old lunatic and the violation of a dairy goat,” Silver doesn’t interrupt again.

  
  



End file.
